Jumping Flash! (1995)

Preliminary: I'll never prefer first person, especially for a platformer, but as far as that can go, this is controlling really well. The music is great, uppity, and with nice voice parts to pump you up. The UI is a bit crowded, but the gameplay is simple enough and fun enough. I especially loved stumbling upon the multi-jump quite early. And this is one of the first games to give me that venture-around-in-a-3d-world feeling. Plus, it has that Super Mario 64 etc Feel where you see far away areas in the distance and come up with a plan to reach them. Tho this extreme jumping usually makes that quite easy to plan :-p I like it enough to likely make it an honorary 3 star, but maybe if it holds up for most the game, it could be higher o.O Probly not tho with it being fundamentally a shooter first and foremost before a platformer.

I don't like that you have no or minimal controls mid-jump.

Oh I thought I had finished the first level but that was just a bonus area you do have to get all the Jetpots. I lovvvve the colors/font of the "Stage Clear"

Day 1

The music continues to be great. And lol the setting of this like hot/steaming water/frying pan world is... absurd. and I got a screenshot of the Stage Clear

I feel like this must've influenced the tone and music of Crash Bandicoots (I just did some research and the composer did the music for Legend of Dragoon too! A favorite favorite favorite game! But not many other games )

I suppose I should clarify it's not so much the edge-of-the-3d-world exploration I have discussed, but rather the Crash and Jak & Daxter etc exploration of what edges I can reach of a jump. Like the edge of a pyramid, see if I can jump up it even when it wasn't intended. Even Grand Theft Autos I would try similar things. Reach the top of a building I wasn't supposed to etc. My favorite moments were like when with Rugrats for PS1, I stumbled upon an area I was indeed meant to find.

Oh gosh I got some sort of a powerup that made everything... well psychedelic and colorful

Ugh oh no a maze/dungeon crawling type level with minimal platforming and deadends/misleads etc argh. And ugh not respawning enemies!

Nice the second boss was tougher but fun and I loved stumbling upon the jump-on-the-boss's-head mechanic that seems intentional cuz it's also dangerous in its own way. Reminded me of Bonk :-p

This has to be the longest I've gone without turning to a guide at all for a game that I'm playing through and I'm about halfway! That's a good sign. And a good sign for the upcoming PS1 era. It's just good ol hooking fun. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of Special Items and powerups and whatnot but I can always return to this for a 100% playthrough.

I had a glitch and my save was frozen. But luckily there's a level select fefature phew. I'm enjoying it but I probly wouldn't replay the whole thing.

Day 2

Don't love how the first personness results in now being clear where you will be landing/how hard to hold the jump button. And kinda wanna move on cuz of that and give this the 4 star it deserves. But it is interesting how that represents what a paltforming character sees in these early 3d worlds haha

Day 3

I also don't love that there is no auto turn around, a staple of first persons as far as I'm concerned.

Nice! Rather short game but enjoyable throughout! The jump almost feels like you're using a mod in an early 2000s first person shooter like Day of Defeat where you mess with gravity etc. And the ending was good reminded me of Crash Bandicoot, but a bit silly lol.

Look: 8.5/10 Start of a foundational era for me!

Sound: 8.5/10 Also some foundational music style here!

Play: 8.5/10 Imperfect for sure and probly deserves an 8 but it's the first to feel like this and it controls better than expected. My only qualms were the slow turnaroudns (which maybe there is a way to account for that, I didn't read the manual because this was good pick up and play type vibes) and no third person option. But as it is--one of the first 3d platformers that happens to be first-person and with tank controls--this is definitely as good as that could have been.

Feel: 9/10 I really thought this would get a 4 star more for its innovation than anything, but I can't deny: it'd been a while since a good ol pick up and play, and tho there were some flaws in the gameplay and the dungeon crawling style levels sort of slowed it down (tho it didn't really) and I usually don't like the collect-to-move-on setup for platforming, this did all those the right way and I was having fun from start to finish, even if it was a bit easy, clunky, absurd in that I really didn't do much battling except the boss fights since it was easy to just avoid or bounce on them, and short. But I explored in a way that I love in 3d games, and again, I had fun throughout bopping to the music.

Attachment: 8.5/10

Overall: 8.6/10

Completion: Main Story (only 2 bonus areas, avoided otherwise)

Playtime: ~4 hours

This is a simple First-Person shooter, platformer that also uses tank controls. you play as a robot rabbit "Robbit", and your goal is to collect carrots, and destroy enemies and bosses of each world. short, simple, sweet.

You're not doing much more than this, and in fact, the core highlights of this game are the controls, and the art-style. alongside Cyber Sled, this is one of the best looking early PlayStation 1 title available out there. it is so good, and up until I played it, I thought It looked something similar or closely resembling the Toy Story movies for some reason.

Anyways, the controls. this is one of the best tank controls I have ever played. it doesn't take long to get the hang of, it is very responsive and you know what you're doing, you're not fighting the controller, and the frame-rate's responsiveness actually does you a favor with enjoying this type of gameplay.

I really enjoyed this a lot, but this is a ~2 hour game that is a not difficult. still, it's a very impressive title, and one that shaped expectations to future games ahead like Super Mario 64 back in 1995.

I have been wanting to play Jumping Flash for years and just got a chance to pick up a nice copy for myself. Honestly, I think this game is better than I would have assumed. One of the main reasons why this game is famous is because it is the first 3D platformer on the Playstation and in the first handful of all time.

The game sees you jumping around 18 levels looking for 4 jetpods and then escaping the level through the exit pad. One awesome thing about this game is how vertical it is. The levels go up really high and your main character gets a triple jump from the beginning. None of these levels are ever really difficult, but i imagine that may largely be because I have played dozens of 3D platformers. Throughout my playthrough, I was wondering how someone in 1995 would have approached the challenges in this game. I guess there is really no way to tell... but its really cool to tread through the levels of this revolutionary game.

My favorite level is world 4-2 which is inside a cave and requires a heavier focus on gun combat. Your character can shoot bullets constantly and defeat enemies by shooting instead of just jumping on them. The boss fights are all decent as well... but none of them are really difficult nor hold up super well. I imagine kids having a good time making their way through these.

The worst aspect of the game is definitely the controls. It is clear that the gaming industry hadn't figured out a good way to maneuver a 3D world yet and the controls take a few levels to get used to.

In order to get the true ending of the game, you have to beat the game a second time. This sounds like a crappy callback to Ghosts and Goblins, but the game is actually better the second time around. The first thing is that the time limit is halved. You now get 5 minutes to play the levels instead of 10 and it feels like a much more appropriate limit. The second thing is that all the jetpods are moved into different locations. Finally, the levels are all slightly altered and your starting location changes. The second playthrough is the definitive Jumping Flash experience and you should definitely continue to it if you already beat the game once!

Great game and I would recommend it to anyone for the historical aspect. It's a great thing that this also holds up a lot better than even some games that came after it!

This game is honestly great fun, jumping around shooting at enemies while finding items and navigating this games stages is great fun.

That said though, this game does undoubtedly show it's age. The lack of strafing and analog stick support are the most obvious omissions, as a result navigating and finding where you need to go can often be difficult.

That said though, this isn't a long game so you undoubtably need to give it a try.

What a great little game!

Platforming feels amazing in it. Shooting can be a bit hit or miss (no pun intended), but here's a pro tip: if you're feeling frustrated about the lack of strafing controls, fear not! You can strafe by making little jumps to the side. It's not ideal but I guess it works with the idea of being a robot rabbit lol

I love the early ps1 graphics and music sounds fun too, a bit like Klonoa I'd day.

It's also very short, which is a plus (btw why people keep complaining about games being too short when they have a backlog the size of the Empire State????)